A Girl From Forever (The Forever Institute series Book 1)

by Yolanda McCarthy

  I accept another drink. This one doesn’t taste so bad, I’m getting used to it now, and the boys’ stories are hilarious. It’s wonderful not to be alone. What nice people. I haven’t known them long, but already they feel like true friends.

  The café thins out as the lunch crowd leaves, and the drinks keep coming as time spins through the afternoon, and I’m not sure how I got here but I’m laughing so hard that I’ve fallen half across Will’s lap.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I mutter, trying to sit up, feeling suddenly a little sick. The world around me sways, like I’m back on the boat.

  “Don’t apologise, you’re adorable, isn’t she mate?” asks Will, mussing my hair. His current companion – perhaps Charlie, or was it Max – nods, then slaps Will on the shoulder with a wink. Charlie-Max heads back down to the theatre. Perhaps I should get going, too.

  I sit up. “I’m so hot.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “What? I need some fresh air,” I mumble, lurching to my feet and bouncing off the wall. Off the wall! I giggle helplessly at the wall.

  “All right, come on lightweight,” laughs Will.

  “Fresh air.”

  “Fresh air it is. Let’s go for a walk.”

  Walking. A truly brilliant idea. I smile gratefully at Will, who takes my hand and leads me downstairs, out into the cold.

  “Wait here, I’ll just tell them I’ll be an hour,” commands Will, ducking back into the theatre. I stare around. It’s getting dark already, even though it must still be afternoon. After a lifetime run by the clock, I am now strangely timeless. The immortal who doesn’t have the time. This strikes me as funny and I laugh out loud… Then pause, transfixed by the beauty of my breath, visible in the air in front of me, an ever-changing cloud of shimmering laughter, disappearing into the night. I huff again, enjoying the delicate swirls in the air, and beyond them the pretty shadows draped around the street like black scarves.

  Moments later, Will returns, and plonks his arm around my waist to steady me. I try to explain about the dancing laughter and black scarf shadows, but he just shakes his head, smiling, and guides me on.

  Will’s coat looks warm, and I wish again that I owned one. I’m distantly aware that I need to focus, to make a plan. It’s still afternoon but getting dark, I can’t lurch around Brixton indefinitely. I need to either head home or find somewhere to sleep. Home. Forever. Farmhouse. Black car. My scattered thoughts won’t glue together, but Will seems so nice, perhaps he’ll help me. He’s the knight in shining armour for my horror movie of a day. Do horror movies have white knights?

  “I haven’t got anywhere to stay tonight,” I mumble plaintively.

  His arm tightens around my waist. “No problem, darling, my place is just around the corner.”

  A weight leaves me. All that worrying, and it was so easy. Somewhere in my befuddled brain, a single sober neurone suggests that this was too easy, that Will will expect something in return. “Will will.” I snigger at the silly words. But yes. Good point, neurone.

  “Will, I’m not – you know – I don’t want to do stuff…”

  “Don’t worry.” He kisses the top of my head and I sigh in relief as, minutes later, he leads me through a doorway, under a broken entrance light, and up narrow concrete stairs.

  We move through a living room covered in pizza boxes and beer bottles, to a room just big enough for the single mattress on the floor and his wardrobe. It’s chilly, and there’s nowhere to sit but the mattress, so it’s only natural that we sink to it and tuck our feet under the duvet.

  “It’s nice that you live so close to the theatre,” I mumble, tilting my head back to look up through the window. Still afternoon, but it looks like night, a full moon already gleaming silver light across the buildings around us. They’re tall, and Will’s place is low down, which gives me a fenced-in feeling.

  “Parents sorted it.”

  I wish I knew what it’s like to say that word, so casually. “Parents,” I echo, staring at the moon as if wishing on a star. Wishing for the impossible: I don’t have parents, but the yearning in my chest doesn’t care.

  I look back, to find Will right behind me, closer than I realised. “Thank you for helping me,” I say shyly.

  “No problem,” he says again, golden hair flopping over his forehead as he moves in, lips searching for mine. I’m surprised but also excited – this is it: my first kiss. How lovely that it’s with my knight in shining armour.

  The kiss is wetter than I expected, and tastes of spicy food.

  “Do you have any food?” I ask when he comes up for air.

  “Sure, sure, in a bit.” He kisses me again, his hand at my waist sliding under my jumper. His fingers are cold on my back and I jump. “Sorry,” he says, removing the hand. He puts his arms around me instead, that’s better, I feel warm and looked after. I want to bury myself in the cuddle and never wake up. I love the cuddle, but the kissing is not what I imagined. My neck begins to ache.

  I pull back, my spine thudding into the wall as I push gently at his shoulders. “It’s just that I’m really hungry.”

  “No problem.” He staggers to his feet and I realise that Will may be a little drunk. He wanders through the doorway, returning with a half-empty pizza box. He waits, watching patiently as I demolish a slice of pizza, then we snuggle back together. I’m thirsty after the salty dough, but somehow it seems rude to ask for a drink after he just went to get me food.

  The kisses begin again as his hand slides back under my jumper, his fingers warmer this time. But it still doesn’t feel right, and I’m confused. “Will, I don’t—”

  “Shh, everything’s fine. Don’t worry.” His hand moves from my belly to my back, and strokes me comfortingly, but then a moment later his hands are drifting upwards, bunching my other clothes up towards my armpits, nearly exposing my chest. It feels sort of nice, but sort of wrong, and my body is a muddle. My head’s pounding, I feel exhausted and thirsty and queasy, but somewhere inside there’s also the tingle of warmth unfurling, instinctively searching for male protection, male strength. Do I want him to stop? I think so, but I’m not certain. I’d really like to explore the whole issue another time – when I feel better.

  I think I might be drunk.

  “I’m confused,” I complain.

  Will kisses me again, then my arms flip up unexpectedly as he tugs Rehan’s huge jumper over my head. “Are you wearing pyjamas?” Will asks, staring.

  “It’s complicated,” I mumble, trying to figure out a polite way to ask for my jumper back. Then he’s kissing me again and his hands are tugging at my pyjama top. No. I sit up, holding my top down. “I’m sorry, I feel weird, I think I really need to sleep.”

  “Sleep?” He doesn’t look happy. “I’ve got to be back at LOST in forty minutes. I can’t leave you here by yourself, I just met you.”

  “Oh, um.” Then why are we here? Despite what Rehan said, I’m not naïve, I watched loads of movies, I know about sex, but I specifically said before we came up that I wasn’t going to do stuff with Will. Didn’t I? It’s all a bit blurry. I thought I told Will that I needed somewhere to sleep.

  “Should we go back then?” I offer. He stares at me like I’m an idiot.

  “Come on, babe.” He’s kissing me again. “You’re so beautiful…” The kisses move down my neck. “So sexy…” He sounds like a movie again, but this time not a good one, and with each kiss my mind clears a little more. The warm feeling is gone, trampled to death by his pushiness. For no reason at all I remember Rehan in the woods, sheltering me under his jacket from the rain, body heat calling across the respectful millimetres between us, and something in me screams out for that, not this.

  I sit, twist away, and grab Rehan’s jumper from the floor. But as I start to pull it on, Will’s hands are everywhere again and he’s laughing as if I’m joking. “Are you cold?” he asks, “Come more under the duvet.” I’m sitting like an idiot, jumper halfway up my forearms, as he pulls the duvet closer
around us and starts kissing his way up my neck. “Gorgeous girl,” he murmurs, “you’re special.”

  The words are a splash of cold water in the face. I’ve heard them before, whispered in the night. Rehan. Rehan said that, and I believed him. Rehan was a liar, and Will – Will is a stranger, and I should not be here.

  I push on Will’s chest. “What now?” he snaps.

  “I think I should go.” I stand up, still swaying slightly, now sober enough to realise that I’m definitely drunk. Alcohol, I must have been drinking alcohol. Another first.

  “Fine,” he shrugs, rolling onto his back and adjusting himself sulkily. There’s nothing of the knight about him now. “Tease,” he says in disgust as I retreat out of his room, clattering down the stairs and back out into Brixton.

  Chapter Eight

  Now what? I can’t go back to LOST, Will said he’s going there soon and I don’t want to see him again. So I walk on, through the damp streets. The shadows don’t look amusing any more, they look like black blood splashed around the buildings, across the roads. Massacred monsters, that’ll come back to life as soon as I turn away.

  I try to sift through my confused feelings. Where did everything go wrong with Will? He seemed like such a nice guy, did I lead him on and mess it up, or did I just get him completely wrong? How did we get to a place where I felt I couldn’t ask him for a glass of water, where it was rude to keep my clothes on?

  Some first kiss. I wish it had been Arlo. Or Rehan. Gah, where did that thought come from. I wish I hadn’t had all those drinks, my mouth is dry, and tastes horrible.

  I don’t understand this outside world at all and I don’t belong in it. Mind made up, I turn my steps down a side street, heading towards Forever, then stop, startled, as I see a girl in a lilac coat. She’s sitting patiently on a doorstep in front of the next building, her halo of frizzy hair lit up by the lamppost above. She looks as out of place as I feel, she can’t be more than twelve or thirteen. She waves at me.

  I smile at her. “Hello,” she says. I walk towards her. “No, you stay away.”

  “Well, that’s not very friendly.” Oops. I think I said that out loud, and now she’s laughing at me as my hands fly up to cover my mouth. I must still be drunk.

  “I don’t mean that I want you to, just that you do. And it’s important that you do.” Well, that just makes no sense at all. “I wanted to see you, that’s why I’m here. I’m sorry that we don’t have more time to talk. But even this should be enough for you to see, when you remember.”

  “You came to see me?” But no-one can possibly know where I am. Not Forever, not Rehan, not anyone. Alarm bells clang through my blurry brain, and the world rocks sideways, taking on that distant quality that it had when I saw the black car. I lean against the wall.

  “Of course! I came to see you because I remembered that I would, and I so wanted to tell you that emotion is the key, but that it has to be thrown back – and some work better than others, irritation amplifies, grief blocks, I don’t know why…” Her expression switches to frustration. “We don’t have enough time. For me, today is all that I can do, but you – you’re important, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you but you’re going to go so far...”

  I swear, everyone outside Forever is mad. She doesn’t know who I am, she’s just some crazy girl rambling at strangers, and I need to get home. I turn away, shivering. Unless… Could she be Vol? Was she really waiting for me?

  I’m never drinking alcohol again. I feel like I’m walking inside a nightmare that I can’t remember but I know I’ve had before, a nightmare in which there’s a monster behind me. A monster at which I Must. Not. Look.

  Somewhere in the distance, I hear a car, and the sound nags at me like a bedroom mosquito penetrating a dream.

  I turn back to the girl.

  “What’s my name?” I ask.

  She smiles as if we’ve always known each other. “Fern.”

  Whatever. I don’t need any more Vol messing with my head. She wants me to stay away, fine.

  I cross the road away from her, feet smacking across the wet tarmac, towards the street that will take me closer to Forever. But the sick feeling in my stomach is growing and growing, and I know that the monster is still behind me. A sheltered doorway ahead looks inviting and I duck into it moments before I hear an abrupt snap, like something fragile breaking. I turn my head, peering back into the street.

  The girl rests back against the building, slumped to one side. Her lilac coat blooms red on the chest, the scarlet gleaming wetly in the lamp light. As I tremble in the shadowed doorway, a black car drives smoothly past me. And I know its registration number like I know my own name.

  Just before it turns out of the road, the window winds down, and someone in the back seat takes a deep breath of fresh air. Arlo? Arlo?

  And the car is gone. Was it Arlo? No. Arlo is in the Institute, he isn’t allowed out for at least another year. But then, neither am I. Was he kidnapped, too? The picture that I’ve been carrying around in my head, of my friends sitting in our rec room waiting for me, worrying about me, is shattered. I know nothing at all about what is going on back home. I know nothing about anything. Are they all outside? Are they looking for me? Kidnapped? If only I could be sure whether that was Arlo. It looked a lot like him, but it was a moving car on a dark street, and I’m drunk.

  I look back at the girl’s slumped body, at the gleaming red pool around her. Vol are violent, John said. An evolutionary dead end.

  I vomit all over the doorstep.

  As soon as I’m finished heaving and spitting bile, I run back the way I came, through the tilting maze of grimy streets, away from the girl, away from LOST, away from black cars and half-remembered nightmares. I see no-one, and I’m glad.

  I slow as I realise that my feet are taking me back towards Forever. Huh. I never knew that I had a sense of direction, never had a reason to know that. I want to be in my bedroom so bad. But once I’m in, the doors will lock behind me.

  I can’t avoid the truth anymore: my home has killers in it. Lucas and Rehan are adults, perhaps terrorists, but… That girl was so young. Forever did that.

  Maybe it was Forever at the farmhouse, too. All those bodies. The broken pieces of Artie in the kitchen. I stop and retch at the pavement, hands on knees.

  When it stops, I glance up at the street sign. Belmore Street. I shouldn’t have come here, this is only a couple of streets from where I left Rehan and Lucas, and they said they’d meet there again at five. I have no idea what time it is.

  But – Rehan and Lucas. The only people I know outside Forever – Will hardly counts. If I don’t want to go home, or sleep rough and risk meeting someone much worse than Will… They’re an option.

  Rehan and Lucas. I whisper the words, as if the feel of their names on my tongue will help me know whether this is a terrible idea.

  They hate Forever. But right now, so do I. That poor girl. Such a short life, such a horrible end to it.

  The world isn’t the place I thought it was, and even that young girl knew more than me. She knew who I was, that I was coming, maybe knew that car was coming, too. ‘You stay away.’ She wanted me to see it, but didn’t want it to see me.

  She just sat there.

  I need to know what’s going on. Geraldine lies. Rehan lies too, but… Rehan is a telepath. He could talk to Katrina for me, maybe find out what’s going on inside the Institute without my having to go back inside straight away. Once I’m inside, I’ll be locked in.

  I’ve got away from Rehan twice, I can do it again if I have to.

  Should I?

  I wonder what time it is. It must be after four o’clock. Could it be five? Has Rehan already met Lucas and left the area? Maybe I have no choice but to go back to Forever.

  I find myself walking briskly, then faster until I’m jogging, then running, back to where I saved Rehan and Lucas.

  It’s not far, but I run as fast as I can, lungs burning, the blister on my right heel agony.r />
  This is it, this is where I threw them to the ground, there’s still a smattering of broken glass in the gutter. But no-one’s here. A wave of disappointment crashes over me. Kidnappers or not, I wanted to see Rehan, see them, I mean. I’m so tired. I don’t want to go home.

  I sit on the pavement and rest my head on my knees.

  “Fern?” I blink blearily at the shadow above me, tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “What are you doing here? You look terrible,” says Rehan. Charming. I want to say the same, but it wouldn’t be true. I get up.

  “Well, I blame you,” I mumble, and then I’m laughing and I don’t know why tears are in my eyes. I blink them away.

  He pulls back, away from my breath – I guess a mix of stale alcohol and vomit is no-one’s favourite perfume. “I thought you’d gone back to Forever.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.” I stare at him.

  “Are you going back?”

  I shrug, and wobble, and he grabs my fingers to steady me.

  “God, you’re freezing.” He shrugs out of his jacket. “So you believe me now?”

  “I don’t believe anything. Anymore. Said by anyone,” I enunciate clearly as he drops his jacket over my shoulders. His frown deepens as I sway from side to side.

  “I can take you to a safe house, we can talk things over there. I know you won’t want to—”

  “How far is the safe house?” I interrupt.

  “Half an hour or so.”

  “Ok.”

  “Really? I thought I was the bad guy.”

  “So did I,” I choke out. “But I really. Need. Somewhere to sleep.”

  “Oh wow, you’ve still not slept?”

  I shake my head, swaying again.